Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Gay Prime Minister

The President of Iceland has asked Social Democratic party leader Ingibjorg Gisladottir to try to form an interim administration.

It is reported that Social Affairs Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir will be named as interim Prime Minister.

If chosen Ms Sigurdardottir, 66, will become the first openly gay or lesbian person to become a head of government.

She has been an MP since 1978 and was recently voted the most popular politician in Iceland.

Yesterday the country's Prime Minister stood down and the entire Cabinet resigned.

A general election has been called for May 9th.

The government was toppled by the financial crisis, which severely affected the Icelandic banking system.

Of course gay people have held all sorts of posts. Brains matter, truly, not a person's sexuality. Some of us are very good. And our sexuality is just a by the way. And some of us are good enough to surmount any problems related to being gay in our societies.

It matters.

To me in Uganda, this kind of happening is a fantastic milestone. I know where we are coming from!

Yet, the comments here made me realize how fantastic a milestone it is in another way. The so what reaction.Iceland is in crisis, and it needs its brightest and best to lead it. And so what if that person is gay?

13 comments:

Michael Kirby showed courage both outside and inside chambers. Australia's first openly gay High Court judge famously "outed" himself with an entry in Who's Who.

He also earned a reputation as the court's "great dissenter".

A maverick in the often musty legal profession, the nation's longest-serving judge thought it was "uncool" to be predictable.

So when it came time to give one of his final public speeches, he spoke in praise of a four-letter word he said had the power to extinguish human rights injustices, racism and discrimination.

"I refer to love," Justice Kirby said in a festive season speech in Brisbane ahead of his enforced retirement at the age of 70 on February 2.

"Love for one another, love for our community, love for others everywhere in the world.

"I have always thought that the essential underpinning of fundamental human rights is love."

Some Australians still did not love their indigenous people, he said, consigning them to the outskirts of civilisation.

"So too with Asian people in the decades of White Australia. We did not love them either.

"So also for women and for gays."

It was the last that affected him most directly, never more so than in 2002 when Liberal senator Bill Heffernan used parliamentary privilege to accuse Justice Kirby of misusing his taxpayer-funded car and of trawling for under-aged male prostitutes in Sydney.

Senator Heffernan's evidence turned out to be a forgery, and he was forced to apologise.

But it was the dignity of Justice Kirby's response that stuck in many minds.

"I accept Senator Heffernan's apology and reach out my hand in a spirit of reconciliation," he said.

"I hope my ordeal will show the wrongs that hate of homosexuals can lead to."

Justice Kirby did not experience universal acceptance of his sexuality even within the High Court, where he has served for 13 years.

"It is true that some of the justices perhaps have less liberal views than I have," he once said.

That's a good pick up. I didn't even know that. However, I do know that Iceland and the Icelandics are one of the most liberal countries and people, crisis or not, in terms of many things, gay being one of them. They also had the first single-mother president (who didn't reveal the name of the father of her onlu child) for many years, a good one.

Still a very long way for Uganda. You do an important job there, standing up for what you believe is right, in spite of the repression.

Hello friends,I know you have varoius interpretations about Gay and all that.The reality is that Uganda is not part of gay business. If we interprete that freedom means gay, we are worse than other animals.Actually I have never seen goats practicing Sodomy!!!!!!!!Its a shame that we the understanding could even mention to me proud of such perversions.I pray that your minds will be opened. YOU CAN NEVER PRETEND FOREVER, THE REALITY is that you all unerdatnd that whatever you are supporting is wrong.

Perhaps you haven't seen a gay goat, but there are over 3.000 species known that have homosexual individuals among them. From whales to dogs, horses to sheep. You can even find penguins that live in a same-sex relationship, even hatching an egg, after it was left by it's mother, and bringing the chick up together.

But, if you want to listen more to some 2.000 year old text, rather that scientific facts, then that's your choice.

Why is YOUR truth, the ONLY truth there is, Upendi? Isn't that arrogant to say, from some one who should be humble and loving? Do you REALLY want to go down that road?

Christ NEVER talked about gay being against God - that is from the Old Testament. Are you Jewish? And if you are talking about what Paul said, in his famous letter - how about talking to some theologians, who actually have an understanding about what he was meaning there?

And what about all the animals? Did God make a mistake creating those gay animals? Or maybe your god isn't so perfect after all? Who are YOU to judge? Didn't Christ say: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Matthew 7:1). Or are those words just something you don't have to listen to, because know the "right way"? Honestly - I really think you've lost your way, judging others and telling them how to live there lives.

Open YOUR eyes and see the TRUTH; you are no more right than we are - and you have no right to pass your judgement upon us. That, my friend, goes against your Jesus Christ, HIS words and teachings. Or was he perhaps also wrong? Or perhaps the word of Paul is more valuable than the word of Christ? This you have to answer, so we can know what your TRUTH really is.

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